USB converters, willing or not, seem to be one of the most popular ways to incline new people towards our sector. It would be welcome the contribute of an expert in the digital sector which does not want to sacrifice the quality of the sound for the sake of the practicality.

DAC, headphone amplifier and speaker into a small cube of six centimeters. To bring someone closer to a first musical listening nothing comes to my mind that could be easier, accessible and performing than this portable system.

Differently from the basic model, this one is provided with a kit of six Op-Amps operational amplifiers in order to personalize the sound performances. The most exigent user can therefore get the best listening combination and configuration.

A fluid sound, without any digital roughness, precise but quite soft. The detail is not an end to itself, it makes the playback more realistic. In this sense, we must say that the digital is making great progresses.

The battery-powered external power supply is more than a simple slave, and the external clock is open to the world and capable of digest whatever frequencies. Evo digital set: small, strong, smart and… infinite.

Minimalist in the look but glorious in the sound. The Soulution 540 is a CD/SACD digital player that employs the VRDS Esoteric VOSP transport and hides with great understatement its unlimited possibilities.

Mini size and mini price: the second episode of Maverick’s miniseries dedicated to the TubeMagic D1 DAC. Besides being a headphone amplifier and having a solid-state audio output, it also has a pre-amp output with one tube only.

You are about to read a reasoning about the role of streaming music and the machines to reproduce it, in AD 2011. Such reasoning springs from the device object of this review, which, beyond merits or faults, is the starting point of these considerations.